First Appearance: Episode 1 (1982)

Last Appearance: Episode 972 (1987)

Known Family: Father - David Palmer; Mother - Beryl Palmer; Stepbrother - John Palmer; Brother - Kevin Palmer; Sister-in-Law - Lynn Palmer; Grandfather - Doug Palmer; Step-Grandmother - Rosie Palmer; Husband (1) - Bill Todd; Husband (2) - Wayne Hamilton

Key Relationships:
Marriage to Bill Todd (jailed in 1982); Hint of romance with Wayne Hamilton in 1982; Love triangle with Wayne Hamilton and Glen Young in 1986, leading to marriage to Wayne Hamilton

Key Storylines:
In 1982, 18-year-old trainee nurse, Susan Palmer, marries Bill Todd - but the relationship is thrown into disarray quickly after Bill admits to murdering his boss, Sam Selmar, and framing Susan's stepbrother, John. Bill turns himself over to the police and tells Susan that he doesn't want to see her again. When he's eventually sentenced to between 16 and 18 years in jail, Susan manages to grab a few seconds with him before he's taken down - but Bill tells her that he wants her to agree to a divorce. Susan agrees reluctantly, but insists that she'll never love another man.

When a guy named Noel Devlin turns up at Susan's house and tells Susan that he's seen Bill in prison and he's being bashed, a concerned Susan agrees to hand over money to pay for Bill's protection. She persuades her father, David, to write a cheque for a further $3,000 - but Noel then vanishes with the money.

Susan is pleased when she meets Wayne Hamilton and he offers to find out if Bill can be transferred to a lower-security prison. Susan takes a liking to Wayne: she feels sorry for him and listens to him as he pours out his problems to her. Sadly, Wayne misinterprets Susan's kindness and he tries to kiss her; Susan has to explain that, although Bill's going to be in prison for many years to come, she still loves him. News soon comes through that Bill will be transferred and Susan is ecstatic. In early-1983, she decides to sell-up in Melbourne and move to be nearer him.

Three years later, Susan returns to Melbourne after Bill tells her that he's divorcing her (bit of a lack of continuity there!) - and she moves back in to the Palmer house, which is now owned solely by her divorced mother, Beryl. It's only a few weeks later that Susan then moves up to Sydney, to look after Gordon Hamilton, following an accident in which he's suffered amnesia. The move to Sydney brings Susan into contact again with Wayne - but also with handyman and gardener Glen Young. From that moment on, a bitter love-triangle develops as the devious, evil Wayne sweet-talks Susan and uses all the tricks he can muster to make nice-guy Glen look bad. Wayne's ultimate ploy is to make it look to Susan as though Glen heartlessly dumped a woman who was pregnant to him in Manila. Susan believes Wayne and turns to him for comfort. Wayne takes full advantage - and it isn't long before he asks Susan to marry him. Despite receiving warnings from both her parents about Wayne's true nature, Susan still says 'yes'. Meanwhile, Bill dies in a fight in prison.

Susan's marriage to Wayne goes ahead - although David does his best to bring it to a halt by wading-in in the middle of the ceremony and demanding that it be stopped. Susan, however, insists that she wants to marry Wayne. It isn't long after the wedding takes place that Susan discovers that she's pregnant. Sadly, Wayne learns at the same time that he has the terminal illness Huntington's Chorea - and that the gene will be passed-on if Susan gives birth to a son. Wayne decides to try and force Susan to have an abortion, but she refuses. Distressed at how quickly Wayne has turned on her, she seeks comfort from Glen - and an affair ensues. Wayne makes things worse by demanding to know he can be sure the baby is his and not Glen's. Devastated at the misery she's suddenly having to endure, Susan decides that enough is enough: she vows to escape Wayne's clutches by faking suicide. She abandons her car and walks into the sea. She then swims to the shore some distance away and begins to make her way back to Melbourne.

The Palmer house is empty when Susan arrives, but it doesn't take long for Caroline Morrell to spot her in the house. Susan asks Caroline to promise not to let Wayne know that she's alive - but she lets it slip to Wayne anyway. To Susan's horror, Glen is killed in a motoring accident, leaving Susan feeling like she has no one to turn to. After some consideration, though, she decides to stop being the victim and to play Wayne at his own game. She hires a TV camera crew to join her as she returns to Dural and pretends to enjoy an emotional reunion with the man she loves. Having moved back into Dural, Susan begins to plot against Wayne by drugging him so that he can't spoil her mother, Beryl's, wedding to Wayne's father, Gordon. However, things go wrong again when Wayne gets in a car and starts driving - not realising that Susan is right in his path. He knocks her down and, although she survives, the stress that Susan has to endure when Wayne starts fighting with Beryl at the hospital leads her to suffer a miscarriage.

Furious with Wayne for the way he's treated her, Susan determines to take a dark and brutal revenge: when Wayne is lying by the pool at Dural, having consumed numerous alcoholic drinks, Susan shoots him. Wayne survives, but to Susan's shock, he names Beryl as his attacker, and she's arrested for his attempted murder. Wayne knows in reality, however, that it was Susan who shot him, and when he's released from hospital he tracks down the gun that Susan used to where she hid it by Glen's grave and uses it to blackmail Susan into returning to him. Susan has to agree - but when Beryl finds out, she orders Susan not to visit her in prison again until she comes to her senses.

In her misery, Susan begins gambling as a way of trying to keep herself occupied. It doesn't take long for her to start incurring large debts, though, and she has to turn to Wayne to bail her out. This is the last straw, though: Susan turns to her friends for help and they agree to make it look like she's faked suicide again. Caroline goes with Susan to the train station and sees her off as she heads across to WA to start a new life in Perth. Before she goes, though, she clears Beryl by arranging for a hitman to attempt to shoot Wayne again.

A few weeks later, Susan receives a telephone call from Alison Carr, who pleads with Susan to return to Sydney and help Alison fight Wayne, who has bankrupted Alison and turned all her friends against her. Susan agrees - reluctantly. While in Sydney, Susan decides to try and spend some brief time with Beryl at Charlie Bartlett's wedding to Todd Buckley. Tragically, while Susan is creeping around amongst the trees in the grounds at Charlie's - trying to remain out of sight - Wayne spots her. He starts chasing her and, when he catches her, he drags her into Dural and snarls menacingly that she's never going to leave him again. What happens next has always been open to speculation - but it ends with Susan lying dead on the floor in the lounge room at Dural, the misery of the last years of her life having been brought to a vicious close.